Hector Ep3 is the final (at least in this season) episode of the indie point-and-tap series Hector: Badge of Carnage. If you’ve already forgotten the ending to the previous chapter, Hector and Lambert were ambushed by the lovable tourism board clerk in the course of their investigation of the mysterious terrorist of Clappers Wreake. Appropriately for Hector, he finds himself at the beginning of part 3 locked in a septic tank being filled by, funnily enough, some kind of brown sludge…

Hector’s finale offers more of the same gameplay as in the original two episodes, if a bit more localized. All of the puzzles are again inventory based with a few dialogue-ones to boot. Most of the time you’ll control Hector only, though Lambert-management will also be required for a brief period of time. Overall I found the difficulty level a bit less than the previous two games, though you’ll still be challenged enough to keep the process interesting.

In your efforts to save Clappers Wreake from the horrible act of terrorism, you’ll come across the new festival area (funded by the way through the money you yourself obtained in part 1 of the series) richly populated by many old acquaintances, as well as the restored clock tower to celebrate the grand re-opening… and tear it down to hell. Interestingly Hector 3 feels just like it keeps on going and going. Twice I thought that the puzzle I was solving was the finale, only to have the pesky terrorist make a mess of things (again).

Hector 3 keeps to the atmosphere of the franchise not only in writing, but also in looks. All carefully drawn like you’d expect from a quality animated show, it looks gorgeous on the iPad. One thing it does still suffer from is the complete lack of multi-tasking support, meaning you have to go through the tedious process of loading the game all over again even if you just pop out to check your e-mail or messages. On the other hand, the developers tweaked the hint system to avoid the frustrating teleportation of our brave hero upon checking out the detailed walkthrough. It should also be noted that there’s still no hot-spot highlighting.

HECTOR Ep3 HD – Beyond Reasonable Doom is a superb finish to arguably one of the best adventure games on the App Store. With stylish graphics, excellent and witty writing and some intriguing twists and turns, it definitely poses an excellent example for other indie developers to follow. Personally, I’d be thrilled to see our loveable Detective Hector return to iOS in the future and bring more filthy corrupt and all-round indecent justice to Clappers Wreake.